Really useful information here thank you! I've been working as an in-studio animator for most of my career about, about seven years. I'm interested in easing into Freelance to diversify my talent range, and this video helped give some insight on that. Working in-studio, I find it's quite a comfortable living, because you have more of a guarantee of income, and depending on how you negotiate your contract, you might have the ability to take time to push out high-quality work within the limits of the production style. In one instance, I was able to spend a few weeks figuring out how to animate fire for a 6 second shot, with the understanding that I was putting a lot quality into a tiny space of time. Sometimes I'm made to churn out a full minute of quick animation in a day. One of the major issues I've personally had with the in-studio system, is that it's allowed me to rest on my laurels and at times coast with a decent, but not excellent quality of animation. A lot of the work is in the 'good enough' category due to time and style restraints, and the amount of content that you get to work on you would define as "cool" is rare. One thing that is always at the back of my head every time I go to work is "I could be doing something more. I could be making something that makes more of a mark, that's more lucrative, engaging, fun." This is one reason why I'm interested in getting more into freelance. It would provide more motivation for self-improvement and excellence. It might also give me a chance to experience more interesting projects to work on. Apologies for the long ramble, but I appreciate the topic a lot! I'd love to pick your brain about the producer and post-production end of freelancing. Working in-studio has given me little exposure to a lot of other elements of the animation production, so I'd love to see a video on steps surrounding the animation. Cheers!
@@SourSourSour Thanks! I know for sure my experience isn't going to align with all given that the size of the studio, and what your specialty is, you'll have a different experience. I've heard from certain studios that employ 100+ in-studio, that there's more difficulty moving between roles.
@@FizzyFrog1234 That entirely depends on the studio you work for and what your job contract allows. I would guess that there are some limitations that you may have if you work at some of the bigger studios. With my job I've never been told or even suggested that running my own passion projects and patreon would be out of bounds. If anything, my employer would want me to keep my passion alive by doing personal work, as long the work they pay me to do isn't suffering as a result.
As an animation student with a primarily freelance working animation teacher, I'd want to share his advice. He always tells us to go to a studio first to build on your skillset and experience, and once you feel confident then you can go an be independent. This is helpful as in our country, animation studios are rampant but also notorious for bad work practices.
Thanks for sharing! I think the pre-requisites in both freelancing and studio are both high, but perhaps it is lower for studios because they are willing to train someone who isn't quite ready. With freelancing you need to be making impressive animations independently from the word go and there is no one around to help you when you get stuck.
this is exactly what I am talking about. Experience guys, experience. You will learn a lot for experience. Specially animation is not something so easy to get in life as goal.
Hey Howard I aspire to become a motion designer and a freelance animator .You just inspired to pursue my dream . You have had a major impact on my journey towards my goals. You are doing thousands of people a favor.Well ,all the best for your journey ahead , I hope you are killing it with the content ,mate.
Great summary but you might wanna mention the downsides and challenges on being a freelancer a bit more since it comes with a bunch of requirements that some people might struggle with. You’ll need a lot of self-discipline and be good at project and time management and it has to work out because the responsibility is all with you. You need to calculate and negotiate budgets and be good at communicating and bargaining with the client. And of course - dealing with tax return xD And yeah being able to pick the projects you wanna work on sounds great but it might take some time to get to a point where turning down a job is even an option. Building a network and be recommended by colleagues is key. I have to disagree with that ‘being alone’ thing tho - I do have a bunch of freelance colleagues around me to work together with on bigger projects and I do consider them my family =) So you can build that kind of environment as a freelancer as well.
I feel like anyone should go to a studio first because there will always be people better than you. Workflows are crisp and itterated, you save a lot of time when working on your own.
so, im still afraid of getting start to animate, everytime i did the proccess and the sketch, my plans just went off, questioning either it's worth my time or not i love animation both 2d and 3d, but im still feel that i cant but because of you, Howard my love to animation is a lot this video does not only gives me info but also gives me inspiration to start again,TY mate and again ty
Question if you can answer, if working in a studio, are there any that can allow working from home and would they be mad if you are working on a personal project? Not using their software though.
I think especially after coronavirus there will have been a shift everywhere which will allow more people to work from home, even if they didn't before. i can imagine a company would be especially mad if you worked on a personal project on company time. However they should encourage it if it is in your own time. It helps the artist to not be too invested in only the client's project, otherwise they can start to get protective over the work when a client asks it to be changed.
Would you do a video showing all the stages you go into producing a freelance animator? I'm interested in becoming one but don't know how to go about it.
Sometimes when you freelance, you don't know when to stop. That's one perk of a studio. At a certain part of the day, you have to stop and this stop is healthy for you to rest and revive yourself from work. So freelancers, learn when to stop!
Hey there, not an animator, but a comic book artist/mangaka/storyboarder. For us, freelancing really depends on how much skill and clout you have. Most of us start out doing this as a part time hobby, where we barely earn minimum wage. It is true what you were saying, that most companies prefer hiring freelancers over large studios. I've been hired by many advertising agencies, and film studios to work on large projects, but as a freelancer I also have had the opportunity to work on smaller, much more personal projects with film students, authors who want their short stories turned into small one-shot comic books, and I feel that range of project types it what keeps me this interested in the industry. It's not mind-numbing work day in and day out, but a fresh new challenge everyday! PS - I'm doing this part-time, my I'm doing an Architecture BSc at University lol
This will be and is helpful to many thanks. Do you recommend going to be in a studio then move on to freelance and use that knowledge from the studio? ( this would be a great question to answer in the video if you did answer this sorry hehe) I LOVE THE CAMERA I had to just say it again. Congratulations on the sponsor as well! You COULD get a small faint light to the right so it's not lob sided ( a suggestion ) I liked what you did the other video with showing what's next to look forward too and it got me ready for it, maybe you could carry it on? That was a whole bundle of ideas and questions, sorry but overall great video.
I can help with the first question. Working in a studio can bring you a constant stream of income while also building experience as well as creating a great platform to network within and outside of. There are some things (2:15) about the process in general that you can get from others in the studio that fall onto your lap as a freelancer. If your end goal is free lancing but you're fresh/new to the animation industry, studios are a great place to start to guarantee some solid foundations. Go out of your way to learn and to make a bunch of art! If you don't find happiness in what you're doing, flip it up!
Hey Howard, I’m not sure if you already have or not, but I think a video on pc specs for animation and what you use for your pc build would greatly help people who want to get into animation. It can be quite difficult as there aren’t very many people that talk about it. It took me a lot of research to figure out what I wanted for my animation pc, but now that I went through that struggle I am pretty proud of it. Just an idea if you haven’t done so already, love your content and hope you continue to put out these awesome informative videos.
i hate working as a studio artist , I'm also a freelance homebased artist i enjoy my time and i have freedom in expressing my art while in studio field there was comparing art style and there was a arrogant artist
Great question! Sometimes a start can be art (animation) for some friends or school or events and get paid a small amount. The more you use social media platforms including RU-vid, the larger your audience can grow. With your own website (even through free services) people can contact you about commissions, and from there once you feel like you have enough income, any other jobs you have can start to slide out of your life and you get to make more art!
Step 1: make a high quality animation - put your heart and soul into it Step 2: publish it to the internet. Good platforms include RU-vid, Twitter, instagram, Vimeo, Newgrounds Step 3: add to the description of your video that you are available for commissions - link to your portfolio Step 4: make a simple portfolio which has your contact info on it. Here's mine as an example (www.howardwimshurst.com/) If this doesn't work the first time, make more films and keep trying.
Can you work in house and the switch to freelance in the future? Like if you are just starting up and you want security until you’re confident enough to go it on your own
yes i'd say that is a solid strategy. You might find it a little hard to leave the comfort of a studio, but that's not the worst thing to happen. If anything I think you might find it to be the other way around. You might need to freelance while you look for a studio spot.
Video game animator here (view my channel for my work). Its great and all and you get stable pay but your lead animators, those who have the final say on your work can be annoying at times, as they want every macro details to fit their vision. Its almost as if you dont have much creative control and you are just an executioner.
You should do a video on "hello world" if you havent already, especially the second halve of the movie. It has some really good dr. Strange type of trippy abstract scenes, left me really impressed.
I am currently working as a main production animator for 11 years, I am a key animator and currently an assistant director. I've been working on anime for years-naruto shipu, diamond ace..etc..-but most of my career is an animated series. Mainly works with DC animated or Marvel. The animation studio system in Europe or Western countries seems to be very different from ours- (japan korea). When I first entered the animation industry, I had to learn from the basics of drawing to a way that suits my work. Because we have to do dozens of animations a year with different art styles. This is why I think newcomers in animation industry are struggling. In order to work, you have to change your drawing style. It's hard enough, but if you do it, your art style is completely gone. I've done countless pieces of Batman , Spider-Man, and I can draw several different character designs from Superman or Wonder Woman, but if someone asks me to animate my character, I'll ask for a storyboard, animatic, a character model, and bg model. :/
i'm sorry, i'm not at a point in my life where i want to disclose something personal like that. I can just tell you that I'm doing fine, living comfortably 👌
to simplify for upcoming animators. Apply on studio then freelance later. Experience is so important in life career journey That's true some studio has a lot of freelancers because if you're working for a project based it is unnecessary to make a lot of artist as inhouse staff I mean all of the people inside the production, its quite a lot. Studio aren't the same like corporate or office work which the project is contiguous.
You might find that it naturally turns out the opposite way. You graduate school at a time where studios are overwhelmed by applications and decide to just not look at them, plus studios are cutting costs by hiring freelancers instead of in-house staff. So you decide to build your portfolio and make money while you do it: freelancing! So you freelance until you are in a better situation to perhaps join a studio or perhaps continue freelancing if you like it, or even build the freelancing career into a studio of its own. It's fine to theorize what you think might happen, but just be prepared for when it turns out a different way because of market behaviours outside of your control. Good to have a plan, but it's also good to develop yourself into the kind of person who can adapt and pivot the moment that plan is not working.
Actually now I'm kind of curious since I want to start off freelancing myself, about setup and computer parts and things of that sort. Do you think you're ever going to make a video like that? I think it could be quite useful
I'm filipino and a highschool graduate, heres some animation schools that I know - CIIT -iAcademy some universities offer animation courses but theyre limited so these two are the best picks
I regret learning alot about animation...cuz everytime I'm watching animated movies if the animation is bad I get annoyed it's like the animation and the story doesn't match at all.
Yea you are right but when you start doing you can create next Pixar or greater than Pixar. Which will full fill your desire .For starting your freelance service my opinion is to use Animation studio. jvz8.com/c/1609285/306929
Do you know how to/ what criteria and or education you would need to direct an animated feature? Would you go up the ranks at an animation company or something else?
There are two realistic ways of doing it. the first is to join a studio at the bottom and work your way up over decades - you basically need to prove yourself as someone who can reliably make entertaining stories and manage people very well. it is an extremely high-level job with a lot of pressure riding on you. You will only ever get the role this way if you prove yourself again and again and again. Even then, there is fierce competition for these roles. A very small number of features produced per year and an endless hoard of artists wanting the director's chair. The second alternative - which I believe is a MASSIVE shortcut to that is to just do it independently - build up a large social media following and then launch a kickstarter. You could theoretically do this in way less time and the big bonus is that you keep all creative rights to the concept. You have no executives breathing down your neck.
can you do animation using a mouse or it is necessary to purchase a digital art tablet.Can anyone recommend some affordable but good digital art or animation tablet that can be connected to the computer to draw.Sorry for my lack of knowledge becuase i want to at least try to do animation in my summer holidays rather than wasting too much time doing nothing
upgrading from mouse to tablet is a game changer. It doesn't matter so much what tablet as long as you don't use a mouse - a mouse is not a drawing instrument! I've listed tablet recommendations in the description
Your videos have really inspired to take up animation because I feel like there are many more things to learn besides studying.And your videos are the best tutorials for all animator of different levels
